abandonware games sorted by popularity

If you’ve ever dreamed of commanding a WWII convoy while cold, stressed, and staring at a pixelated radar screen, Action in the North Atlantic (1989, DOS) has you covered. It...

Imagine being the captain of a space freighter crewed entirely by neurotic aliens, each with a personality straight out of a sitcom. That’s Psi 5 Trading Company in a nutshel...

Before million-dollar stadiums and sponsorship deals, there was Street Sports Baseball (1987, DOS)—where kids played in backyards, on cracked concrete, and sometimes next to ...

Before Tetris conquered the world, Nyet gave DOS users their own block-stacking fix. It’s essentially a clone, but with its own quirks and rough edges — the kind of thi...

Don’t let the cartoony name fool you: Skullduggery: Adventures in Horror wants to unsettle you, and it’s surprisingly good at it. This early horror adventure mixes clas...

Duck Hunt is a faithful remake based on the original light gun game Duck Hunt published by Nintendo in 1984. Duck Hunt was a shooting gallery game with a straightforward ...

Goody throws you into the shoes of a small-time thief in a colorful, chaotic city that feels like it was designed by someone who really wanted to punish jump timing. As you sneak a...

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mil...

Rambo III is an action video game based on the 1988 action film of the same name, featuring the iconic character John Rambo, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. The game was developed...

In Black Gold (1989), you're in the cutthroat world of oil barons. It’s like Dallas, but with more charts and fewer cowboy hats. You build rigs, negotiate deals, and try to o...

Finally, a game where you don’t blast aliens—you launch real people into space, with all the white-knuckled tension of 1960s NASA. Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space i...

Despite the baffling title (Book I – Chapter 2, yes, really), this is a charmingly earnest old-school RPG. Think “Ultima clone with extra oatmeal” and you're clos...

Onslaught (1990, DOS) takes the classic top-down shoot-and-survive formula and injects it with an enthusiasm that borders on reckless. Hordes of enemies sprint at you like they&rsq...

Before the shades, the muscles, and the one-liners, Duke Nukem was just a guy in a 2D platformer trying to save the world from an evil scientist. It’s bright, fast, and glori...

If you’ve ever wanted to feel intellectually inferior to a few hundred lines of 1981 code, Chess is your game. This digital board doesn’t bother with graphics flair or ...

Think Top Gun but with less Tom Cruise and more pixelated explosions. Chopper Duel pits you against a friend (or the AI) in one-on-one rotorcraft carnage. It’s fast, twitchy,...